kthorne@umich.edu
This is a large quilt, about 56 X 56. It hangs on my sewing room wall. 2004
There are more quilts to view, see sidebar for categories.
I have a book, including patterns, by Victoria Findlay Wolfe. It features her fabulous Double Wedding Ring quilts. She makes this traditional pattern look very modern. I made one several years ago using feedsack fabrics.
This time I decided to use scrap fabrics. I have LOTS of them. Here’s a sample pile.
I sewed them together, with no planned selection. Then I could use the “new fabric” to cut out the templates for the quilt.
Using my design wall, I put up some pieces and started arranging. I decided to use a mottled blue fabric as the color to tie it all together. (Someone once opined that denim is the new neutral color, because everything goes with it. I have to agree.)
Here’s how it finally turned out. I am sure you can guess why I called it “Unchained”. 🙂
I had some wonderful fabric, with wavy stripes, that included orange, blue, green and red, and gold, all in the same piece. Already, the fabric designer had figured out a great combination of colors! I wanted to do squares built around more solid colors, my hand- dyed fabrics. I was hoping to make the centers look like they are floating above the backgrounds. (The center square is the same fabric as the border, by the way.) I used a wavy quilting design to finish it.
Detail:
I pieced this one last year, just finished it this week. No templates were used– it’s just cut free-form. There are some Australian fabrics, some polka dots, some florals, and dragonflies! Size is 31 x 31″.
Detail:
I wanted to use some of my bright colors (I do love them), and I saw this pattern of crosses that would suit my purpose. I first tried putting all sixteen blocks side by side. Wow, that was a whole lot of pattern and color. It needed some black borders to calm things down a bit. Just a bit though, since I used black with white splotches, another rather busy pattern. Finished it with more of the splotchy black. It’s about 44′ square.
Detail:
Close up of quilting, which was spirals, and signature.
Well, I didn’t know about the engagement when I started and finished this queen sized quilt, but my nephew and his now-fiancée just got engaged yesterday. And I just presented their quilt to them yesterday also! They spent time looking at the fabrics and trying to see where one is repeated in another spot. That could keep them busy for quite a while!
This one is lots of strips of blue fabric, all from my collection. I wanted the center to be lighter than the outer blocks. And then I added a dark border that also featured strip blocks on point. It was quilted by the S & B quilters in Pinckney. I’m sure the happy couple will stay warm under this one.
Under construction, on design wall:
I recently saw a quilt (someplace online, I couldn’t tell you where) that combined a traditional 9-patch (made of 9 squares) with angled crosses on top of each patch . I liked the idea that the crosses were wonky and irregular.
This week I plunged into my considerable collection of plaids, and pulled out some darks and lights to make the 9-patches. Then I had the idea to use the BACK side of the patches as the front of my piece. That meant that the seams are showing on the front, and would become frayed and textural once washed. I did nine of the blocks in plaid, then selected some bright printed fabrics for the crosses. I stitched a cross-grid over the whole piece. Everything you see on the finished quilt had the seams exposed and frayed (I washed it). You could call it “messy” or just “different”. I love the result! It speaks to the traditional quilt style but has a spontaneous feel with those crosses. What would the “quilt police” say?
Detail:
I just finished this quilt, meant for the back of our sofa. This is where our cat Ginkgo sleeps every night. The old utility quilt I had been using on the sofa back has been through lots of washings. And, it was never meant for a sofa back. I realized one day that I had never made a quilt for MY house! I’ve made about 20 bed-sized quilts–all are in the possession of family members.
I wanted to make something “modern”, with a simple pattern and interesting fabrics. And it had to harmonize with the sofa, of course. I like this zigzag pattern, it’s made of half-square triangles, a building block of so many quilt patterns. The finished size is 54 x 64 inches. And I put a zigzag on the back, so it can be used in two ways. I chose an all-over pattern for quilting, using my mid-arm machine.
The back, and detail.
